STereoselective environmental processes in Antibiotics: role for Resistance

STAR approach is based on fundamental understanding of enantioselectivity of environmental processes that can impact the fate/behaviour of pharmaceutical contaminants. Fluoroquinolones (FQs), a group of chiral fluorinated antibiotics/anti-cancer agents will be explored as a proof of concept, since most small molecules approved in the last years are either fluorinated and/or chiral, presenting a stable C–F bond and a potentially enantioselective bioactivity. To attain its goals, STAR will exploit the chirality of selected FQs as a tool to:
1) realize the impact of stereochemistry on antimicrobial resistance (key innovation) by testing the hypothesis that antibiotic resistance (AR) may be acquired in (and not only spread/disseminated by) wastewater treatment plants (never verified before);
2) reveal how to better select drug candidates by biodegradability; and
3) pave the way for future directions of Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA).
STAR will contribute to reduce AR (expected to cause 10 million deaths/year by 2050), raising the alert level for environmental protection and sustainability, at the same time rebranding the relationship pharmaceutical industry vs environment by disrupting the ERA process and creating pioneering guidelines for the pursuit of safer drugs.